Music News

Wu-Tang’s legendary Shaolin album has been sold

Several years back, Wu-Tang Clan released a single copy of a CD called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Housed in a special box, it went up for auction and was eventually sold to weasely pharma bro/hedge fund dude Martin Shkreli for US$2 million.

Shortly thereafter, Shkreli ran into trouble with the law and was convicted and jailed on a series of fraud charges. As part of his sentence, he had to pay restitution of US$7 million. That means some of his holdings had to be liquidated to pay the fines. That included the Wu-Tang CD. It became the property of the U.S. Government in 2018.

This week, though, we learned that the Feds sold the CD back in July for US$4 million. The new owners are PleasrDAO, a 74-member of a community dedicated to cryptocurrencies. And according to the New York Daily News, the sale came as an NFT instead of a physical deed of ownership.

PleasrDAO plans to exhibit what they bought in galleries around the world.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37980 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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